Dear Sherlock
by LadySolitaire83
Summary: Tumblr prompt for penaltywaltz/afteriwake: Sherlock discovers a box filled with Molly's letters to him.


**DEAR SHERLOCK**

 **3 July 2015**

 **A/N: Full prompt: Molly wrote Sherlock a letter every day that he was gone, even when she began dating Tom and the relationship got serious. She thought she'd hidden them well but one day Sherlock finds them and sits in the room, reading them all. He can see in the letters that she cared about both of them, and he and Molly finally talk about why she ended her engagement, leading Sherlock to realize she never stopped caring about him so strongly, even when she loved someone else, and they [share] a kiss.**

 **I hope y'all don't mind that I tweaked the letters thing a bit.**

 **This is safe for work, although I dropped a few swear words in here. So warning for language again.**

 **I own nothing. Everything belongs to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, BBC, Steven Moffat, and Mark Gatiss. If I owned Sherlock and Molly Hooper, then there would be a lot more Sherlolly in the show. All mistakes are mine. Reviews and constructive criticism are welcome.**

* * *

Sat on Molly's bed, Sherlock opened his eyes and found Toby's paw resting on his thigh. He swatted it away before checking his messages. He replaced his mobile on the bed without replying to any of his messages and saw the cat staring at him. "Don't even think about it," he warned as its front foot hovered over his thigh. He let out an appalled gasp when it stepped on his thighs before jumping from the bed and knocking his mobile to the floor. "Oh, for God's sake!" he exclaimed as Toby kicked the phone under the bed on its way out of the room.

With a grunt, he rose from the bed and knelt down to retrieve his phone, nudging a shoebox into view in the process. "What is this?" he muttered as he picked it up and weighed it. Curious, he shook the box and heard rattling and rustling sounds. He sat back down on the bed and placed the box on his lap. He reached for the lid but stopped before he could take it off. He knew how angry Molly got when he touched her personal items without her permission. _But what if this box had one of Mycroft's bugs? Molly would appreciate that I got rid of it_.

"Huh," he uttered when he finally removed the lid.

Inside the box was a copy of _The Guardian_ dated the day he faked his death. News clippings about his suicide, as well as a copy of Kitty Riley's exposé, were clipped to the front page. And three large journals, all with fabric covers printed with peonies, were hidden underneath.

He sat back and took the bottom journal from the box. He opened it to a random page and landed on a new entry in Molly's handwriting.

 _25 December 2011_

 _Dear Sherlock,_

 _Merry Christmas! I hope you're having a decent glass of brandy or Scotch wherever you are. :)_

 _I invited our friends for Christmas dinner at my place last night. Mycroft couldn't make it but he sent his PA to deliver our presents. We had a bit of fun and a LOT of booze. But we missed you so much. After Sally and Anderson left, we told anecdotes about you. We were laughing at first but we all ended up crying and hugging each other._

 _John moved out of 221B a little over a month ago. I think he's now working full-time at a surgery in Fulham. I ran into him at Barts once on my way to lunch. He was going to see Dr Stamford before his appointment with his therapist. He hasn't resumed blogging but, at least, he's back in therapy._

 _By the way, Mrs Hudson's asked me to stop by for tea once a month. I hope that's OK. She just gets so lonely now that her boys aren't around. (John promised to ring her up or call round, but he hasn't been back since he moved out.) She said she couldn't bear to rent out 221B to anyone else. Except me, that is. But I declined. (You're welcome!) Then she promised to renovate 221C if I agreed to move in. :D_

 _Greg has been on paid administrative leave but he's going back to work in January. Sally did say Greg could be put on desk duty for a while so she's currently partnered up with DI Gregson (I think he's new). Oh! She finally ended things with Anderson because his wife found out about her. Anderson's now back with his wife. I'm not sure he's completely happy though._

 _I just wish Mycroft would let me know if you're OK. I'd rather have a note or a text message saying you're alive/safe than the gloves he sent me for Christmas._

 _Love,_

 _Molly_

Not wanting to remember that first miserable Christmas away from his friends, he skimmed through the other entries. Written in the form of letters to him, they detailed Molly's daily life, the interesting cases in her morgue, and their friends' lives since he left. She usually conveyed her hopes that he was safe and the fact that she missed him at the end of her entries.

He turned to another page and groaned upon seeing hearts on the margins.

 _14 February 2012_

 _Dear Sherlock,_

 _I know you think Valentine's Day is silly and so commercialised so I won't say much about it._

 _Meena set me up on a blind date today. His name is Tom and he's her ex-boyfriend's mate. He's nice. He works for RBC at Canary Wharf. He supports Chelsea in football and plays rugby too. He has a punny sense of humour––like me! :)_

 _At the end of the blind date, he asked me out to dinner. I said yes._

 _I don't know if he becomes a proper, serious boyfriend. I mean, I JUST met him. (Which reminds me: I need to ask Greg to run a background check on Tom. Can't have another Jim Moriarty, am I right?) But I like him so far. And my gut tells me he's a good man. He's not you, of course. But I think I have a shot at happiness with him. I hope._

 _I do still love you. But you're off dismantling Moriarty's criminal network and you've no way of contacting me. Let's not forget the fact that you don't love me back. But I can't just sit around while I wait for you to return. I've got to live my life._

 _Anyhoo, I hope you know how much we love you. And I hope you're doing well. Please come back soon. I miss you._

 _Love,_

 _Molly_

Setting the first journal next to him, he picked up another diary and opened it to a page with balloons drawn on the top margin.

 _6 January 2013_

 _Dear Sherlock,_

 _Happy 36th Birthday! I have a feeling, though, that you're probably not celebrating your special day._

 _I went to your 'grave' during my lunch break. Unsurprisingly, I ran into John and Mrs Hudson. He looked much happier. He was even smiling during our little chat. But I think he suspects you're not dead, because he asked me if I was 100% sure that you died from your injuries. Of course I told him I was. His jaw did the thing and he was like, 'Wouldn't it be funny if he just showed up at my flat or at work and scared the shit out of me?' I don't think he meant 'funny' in the literal sense._

 _It hurt so much that I couldn't tell him that you ARE alive (I hope) and that you're getting rid of the people who can hurt our friends. But I held my tongue, don't worry. We hugged each other before they left. I stayed for a bit (waiting for you, I suppose) and then went back to work._

 _Anyway, Tom wanted to come with me to your 'grave'. But I couldn't let him. If I did, then he would have seen just how much I care about you. I don't think he'd want to see that his girlfriend is still deeply in love with a disgraced and dead man. And I don't want to hurt him because he's SUCH a great bloke. He's so kind and so caring. While he's not a genius like you, he's smart in his own way. He doesn't get grossed out by my job, although he's not into watching me do post-mortems. I know you don't care, but he's actually not terrible in bed. Most importantly, he has a clean record. Not even a single parking ticket! Of course that doesn't mean he's not a sociopath. But all signs lead to him being a normal, mentally stable kind of guy._

 _You know, I care about Tom and I like him a lot. I don't know if I'm in love with him yet but it's getting there._

 _Anyhoo, I hope you're well. And please come back really soon. For John._

 _I miss you._

 _Love,_

 _Molly_

After thumbing through the other pages, he closed the diary and set it on top of the first one. He picked up the last journal and flipped through the pages until he found her entry on the day he paid her a visit in the locker room.

 _2 November 2013_

 _Dear Sherlock,_

 _You're back. Oh, my God. You're finally back!_

 _I still can't believe it. One moment, I was going to my locker (remind me to tell you about the really interesting post-mortem I did on that shift later), then the next… YOU WERE STANDING BEHIND ME._

 _I'm really sorry I couldn't stay and chat with you because I had dinner plans with Tom and his parents. And I'm sorry I hugged you so tightly that you yelped. I know you're not the touchy-feely type, but I couldn't help myself. I've missed you so much! And staring at you wasn't enough. I needed to touch you and make sure that you weren't a hallucination. I'm sorry if I freaked you out._

 _I saw the cut on your lip. Did John do that? Ouch! Now I wish I'd stayed so I could treat it. (Sorry, I can't be late to dinner with the future in-laws.)_

 _Speaking of which, did you see my engagement ring? Of course you did. Few things escape you. Anyway, Tom proposed on Valentine's Day. We had dinner and I bit on the ring during dessert. Then he had this sweet and adorable speech about being in love with 'the most fascinating woman he'd ever met'––i.e. me. Evidently, I said yes!_

 _You know, Tom's a good man. He loves me and cares so much about me. He'd be a good husband and father to our future children._

 _Obviously, I love him too and I care about him. I wouldn't have agreed to marry him if I didn't. He's not the love of my life (that would be YOU) but I suppose what I feel for him is enough to spend the rest of my life with him._

 _Anyhoo, I hope you give John space for a few days. I know he loves you and missed you despite his (understandable) anger. But he'll forgive you anyway. Then you'll be off solving crimes and puzzles again. Perhaps he'll move back in, although I heard from Greg that he's dating a nurse from work. I hope he forgives me too._

 _I do hope we'll be proper friends now that you've come back and now that I'm getting married. You did mean what you told me when you asked for my help, right?_

 _Anyway, I'm so glad you're back. Welcome home, Sherlock._

 _Love,_

 _Molly_

"What do you think you're doing?"

He calmly closed the journal, his forefinger marking his place, before looking up at the visibly upset and panicking pathologist. "Why did you never tell me that you wrote me letters for each day that I was gone?"

"Oh, for Pete's sake!" she exclaimed as she rushed towards the detective and grabbed the diary from him. "Sherlock, we've been over this before. I've asked you _so_ many times not to touch my personal items." She rearranged the journals back in the box and then placed the newspaper over them. "Don't you remember when you discovered my––"

He seized her forearm, cutting off her sentence. "Molly, please answer my question."

She looked at him, and her eyes softened. She sighed in resignation. "All right. Scoot over." Sighing, she sat down next to him, the box now on her lap. "I didn't tell you because you didn't need to know. You were never meant to find out about the journals."

"Did you write those letters to me, so you could deal with the burden of keeping my secret from John and all our friends?"

She shrugged. "You could say that. You see, I had absolutely no one to talk to during those two years. Not even Mycroft would talk to me, because we were both pretending to grieve for you. I had a lot of feelings about everything, so I decided to keep a diary. I wrote the first entry as a letter to you, and it surprisingly made me feel a lot better about things. So I kept that style. It's no different from the times I talked _at_ you in the lab or in the morgue."

"But you continued to write them even after you started dating Meat Dagger." He crinkled the bridge of his nose as he looked at her in confusion. "Why? Surely you could talk to him about the other things?"

" _Tom_ 's sweet and a good man, but he has never been an outcast like you and me. He has always been the acceptable kind of sociable, football-loving nerd. No one made fun of him for being weird and morbid." She glanced at Sherlock. "He doesn't quite understand why I feel what I feel. Do you get what I'm saying?"

He nodded. "Is that why you called off your engagement?" he asked after a beat.

She flashed him a sad smile. "That's part of the reason." She pulled the third journal from under the newspaper and flipped to the page marked by the red ribbon. She handed it to him without a word.

 _20 May 2014_

 _Dear Sherlock,_

 _I can't take this anymore. It hurts so much and I feel crappy for hurting him, but I CAN'T MARRY TOM._

 _It's not just his dumb 'meat dagger' theory. It's not just how he makes occasional sexist jokes about women in STEM, especially in medicine. It's not just how UTTERLY BORING he could be, particularly lately._

 _I DON'T LOVE HIM AS MUCH AS I LOVE YOU._

 _I mean, how could I marry him if YOU are the first thing on my mind when I wake up AND the last thing when I go to sleep? How could I pretend that I don't die (figuratively speaking, of course) every time I see you with gorgeous women when I couldn't care less every time he ogles women in my presence? How many times could I catch myself thinking about you every time I have sex with my fiancé? How much longer do I have to insist to my friends that I'm over you?_

 _I thought I'd stop thinking about you and being in love with you after I decided to marry Tom. And I was doing SO WELL until you returned and fucked everything up for me. It's not fair to him when I know that my heart belongs to YOU._

 _That's why I can't marry Tom. And I have to tell him soon because he's been bugging me about our wedding date. Seriously. I almost told him to shove it on the way back to London from John and Mary's wedding._

 _I can't believe I'm about to break up with the man who actually loves me for the man who could never love me back. All because I couldn't let go of the way you looked at me and the way you kissed my cheek in Howard Shilcott's hallway. FUCK YOU AND YOUR EYES AND YOUR LIPS._

 _Molly_

Sherlock replaced the journal in the box and turned to face her. His heart thumping in his chest, he cradled her face in his hand and stroked her cheekbone with his thumb. "I am sorry for all the pain I've put you through. I promise that I'll make up for that for the rest of our lives." He kissed her on the forehead. "But you're wrong."

She gave him a confused stare. "Wrong about what?"

He took a deep breath. "You claimed that I could never love you back. You're wrong, because _I love you_ , Molly Hooper."

"Wh-what?"

"I am in love with you, like John and Mary love each other. Like my brother secretly fancies his PA. I love you the same way that you love me."

Tears welled up in her eyes, and she sniffled. "Sherlock, please don't joke about this."

His chest ached at the hurt and disbelief in her eyes. "I'm _not_ joking," he insisted.

"How… Since when?"

He shrugged and let out a brief chuckle. "I don't know. I can't pinpoint when I started to have romantic feelings for you. It might be that night when I told you that you counted. It might be long before that or even long after that. All I can tell you for certain is that I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun." He wiped away the tears that rolled down her cheeks.

"Say it again," she whispered, utter joy replacing the pain in her eyes.

"I love you, Molly Hooper," he declared with all the affection and sincerity he could muster.

She sniffled and grinned back at him. "I love you too, Sherlock Holmes."

He scooted back to his previous spot and lay on his back. He did not take his eyes off her as she lay down with him and laid her head on his shoulder. Holding her tightly, he shut his eyes as he relished her warmth and the lemony smell in her hair.

"May I kiss you, Molly? Please?" he asked after a few moments.

"Yes, of course you can," she replied as she gazed up at him. She moistened her lips as she scooted up the bed.

To his surprise and relief, his mind grew quiet once their lips touched. He slipped his hand under her shirt and stroke her bare lower back as their kiss became more passionate. He moaned when she brushed her tongue against his. He groaned in frustration when she pulled away to catch her breath and to smile down at him. _I've got to talk to Mum about Gran's ring_. He grinned up at her. _And I've got to thank Toby_ , he thought just as her mouth crashed down on his.

* * *

 _Thanks to Baker Street Wiki for being a good reference for the dates, especially the years._

 _Hate it? Like it? Love it?_


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